Governing the future: science,policy and public participation in the construction of the long term in the Netherlands and Sweden

This paper is a historical study of two institutions devoted to the problem of the future – the Dutch WRR (the Scientific Council for Government) and the Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies – both created in 1972. While there is a growing interest in the social sciences for prediction, future imaginaries and the governance of risk, few studies have examined historically the integration of the category of the ‘future’ or the ‘long term’ in political systems in the postwar years, a period in which this category took on specific meaning and importance. We suggest that governing the long-term posed fundamental problems to particular societal models of expertise, decision-making and public participation. We argue that the scientific and political claim to govern the future was fundamentally contested, and that social struggle around the role and content of predictive expertise determined how the long term was incorporated into different systems of knowledge production and policy-making.     

The Australian mining tax and the political power of business

This article provides a detailed analysis of the Australian Labor government's mining tax, building on recent debates that critique Lindblom's Politics and markets. We argued that the case illustrates the power of big business, in particular the importance of the relative flexibility of large companies, especially in the form of ‘investment strikes’, although such a strategy is more constrained in the resource sector. We also explore two other key factors. First, we analyse Lindblom's argument that government has resources which big business needs, and suggest that this argument depends on governments being competent in negotiations with large companies. We find that the claim did not apply to the case of the mining tax. Second, we analyse his view that business power owes a great deal to the manipulation of citizens' ‘volitions’. We find some evidence to support this claim, but again suggest that the failure of the government to effectively make the case for a mining tax helped business.

本文就最近有关林德·布罗姆《政治与市场》一书的辩论,对澳大利亚工党政府的矿业税做了详尽的分析。笔者指出,矿业税说明了大企业的力量,尤其是大公司的相对灵活性,特别是他们的“投资罢工”,尽管在资源部门这种策略受到了扼制。笔者还探讨了另外两个关键因素。第一个是林德·布罗姆观点,即政府有大企业所需的资源。此论的根据是政府有能力与大公司讨价还价。笔者认为,这种说法并不适用于矿业税。第二个是,林德·布罗姆认为企业力量很大程度要受公民“意志”的左右。此说有一定根据,但政府未能搞定矿业税则帮了企业。     

The significance of orientation elements in iron age burial customs at Voss: A tentative interpretation

After defining the concept ‘orientation elements’ in Iron Age burial customs and summarising the main theories about the Norwegian material in general, the author considers the material from the district of Voss in Western Norway where the data from the finds is more interesting than usual. She attempts to show that the local topographical conditions have played a much larger role in orientation than has usually been maintained, and further suggests that orientation may reflect a ceremonial pattern determined by religious ideas arising out of the belief in ‘haugbu’ (barrow‐dwellers).     

Two approaches to third world agrarian class analysis

Lucas de Rouffignac, Ann. The Contemporary Peasantry in Mexico: A Class Analysis. New York: Praeger, 1985. xix + 203 pp. including bibliography and index. $30.95 cloth.

Stoler, Ann Laura. Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870–1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. xii + 244 pp. including bibliography and index. $22.50 cloth.